Debt. It is a four letter word that millennials hate, but they along with a huge swathe of people are drawn to it like flies to a burning lamp. It eats at people emotional and even physically. Sometimes, the power of debt can be so overwhelming that we feel at a complete loss with ourselves and what we can do. Sometimes this feeling is strong it feels like there is absolutely nothing we can do in the onslaught of ever accrueing interest, bills, and unexpected emergencies that crop up in our lives that reduce “little wins” back to where they were, or even worse financially speaking.
The first step, that is if you truly wish to end debt, is to confront this feeling of overwhelm and helplessness. Realize that the task is not as monumental as you may believe. Break down what you need to accomplish in order to take control of your debt and be debt free once and for all.
For example, if you had $30,000 dollars in credit card debt, you need to figure out a gameplan to pay that back. Maybe you set a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-bound, Time-bound) to help end your debt.
If you decide you want to be free and clear of this $30,000 dollar debt in just 2 years, now we can break this down into some specific numbers of what we would need to do. There are 24 months in 2 years, and if we divide $30,000 by 24 we get $1,250.
That means if we pay a $1,250 every month to that debt, it will be completely gone within 2 years. Our specific goal is debt elimination of the $30k, we can measure how much money we pay off every month of that debt, it is an achievable albeit ambitious goal, the results are debt free and we have a period of time we want to accomplish this goal (in 2 years).
Suddenly, your goals seem too ambitious again.
If you are in debt that much, how are you going to be able to divert $1,250 a month every month for the next 2 years?
Let us break it down again.
What is $1,250 in 30 days?
That is only $41.66 a day.
This number is very specific, but it is also very small. What could you do that could earn you an extra $41.66 cents a day? There is a plethora of things that are possible.
Now we have gone from a feeling of overwhelm, to a feeling of possibility. When we break down our big, ambitious goals like this, then the overwhelming dooming feeling we get from massive debt becomes pretty easy, and manageable.
Of course if you are debt free, you could apply this same goal making philosophy to saving $30k a year as well! By breaking down the big “massive” debt overwhelm feeling, you have now created a bite size problem that you can could destroy in no time at all, with very little extra added effort on your part.
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